so hard that that it threw the young man off his feet and to the ground.
"Man down!" Marcone shouted. We were close enough to the gate that I could see the pale blue light that spilled through it. Marcone waved his hand through a couple of signals and flicked a finger at Ramirez, then at Hendricks. The armed men—mercenaries, they had to be; no gang of criminal thugs was so disciplined—rushed forward, taking charge of the wounded, seizing Ramirez and dragging him back toward the gate, roughly pushing and shoving the thralls ahead and toward the gate.
I went to Ramirez, staggering away from Justine. The knife had hit him in the guts. Hard. Ramirez had worn a Kevlar vest, which wasn't much good for stopping sharp, pointy things, though it had at least kept the knife's hilt from tearing right into the muscle and soft tissue. I knew there were some big arteries there, and more or less where they were located, but I couldn't tell if the knife was at the right angle to have hit them. His face was terribly pale, and he blinked his eyes woozily as the soldiers started dragging him across the floor, and his legs thrashed weakly, bringing his own left leg up into his field of view.
"Bloody hell," he gasped. "Harry. There's a knife in my leg. When did that happen?"
"In the duel," I told him. "Don't you remember?"
"I thought you'd stepped on me and sprained my ankle," Ramirez replied. Then he blinked again. "Bloody hell. There's a knife in my guts." He peered at them. "And they match."
"Be still," I warned him. Vampires and thralls and mercenaries were falling back through the gate now. "Don't move around, all right?"
He began to say something, but a panicked vampire kicked his leg as he went past. Ramirez's face twisted in pain and then suddenly slackened, his eyes fluttering closed. I saw his staff on the ground and grabbed it and pitched it through the gate after him, the men carrying him as the fight behind me got closer, while most of the retreating vampires still fought off the determined assault of the ghouls.
"How long?" I heard Marcone demand of one of the soldiers.
The man checked his watch—an expensive Swiss stopwatch, with springs and cogs, not some digital thing. "Three minutes, eleven seconds," the soldier said.
"How many charges?"
"Six doubles," he replied.
"Hey," I snapped at Marcone. "Cutting it a little close, huh?"
"Any longer and they wouldn't accomplish anything," Marcone replied. "Can you walk?"
"Yes, I can walk," I snapped.
"I could get someone to carry you," Marcone said, his tone solicitous and sincere.
"Bite me," I growled, and called, "Murphy?"
"Here!" Murphy called. She was among the last of those retreating from the ghoul onslaught. Her boxy little Volvo of a gun was hanging by its strap on one shoulder, and she held my .44 in both hands, though it looked almost comically overlarge for her.
"Ramirez has got a knife in the stomach," I said. "I need you to look after him."
"He's the other Warden, right?"
"Yeah," I said. "He's already through the gate."
"What about you?"
I shook my head and made sure my duster was still covering most of me. "Malvora is still out there. He might try to kill our gate, or try some other spell. I've got to be one of the last ones through."
Murphy gave me a skeptical look. "You look like you're about to fall over. You in any shape to do more magic?"
"True," I said, and offered her my staff. "Hey, maybe you should do it."
She gave me a hard look. "No one likes a wiseass, Harry."
"Are you kidding? As long as the wiseass is talking to someone else, people love 'em." I gave her half a smile and said, "Get out of here."
"How are we getting back out again?" she asked. "Thomas led us there, but…"
"He'll lead you back," I said. "Or one of the others will. Or Ramirez, if some idiot doesn't kill him trying to help him."
"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather you did it, Harry." She touched my hand, and departed through the broad oval of the gate. I saw her hurry through ankle-deep snow beneath what looked like sheltering pine trees to Ramirez's side, where he lay limply on his cloak. The thralls looked confused, which of course they would be, and cold, which, given their wardrobe, of course they would be.
"That's all of ours!" shouted the soldier to Marcone. "Two minutes, fifteen seconds!"
He had to shout. The